Green Options

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Green entrepreneurs, like any business man or woman, are constantly seeking the best way to attract new customers. In the eco friendly arena, these customers come in a variety of rapidly changing consumer profiles. As I wrote about in my post, How to Reach Green Consumers - Using Psychographics To Define Your Target Market, green consumers range from the super committed LOHAS who are very progressive on environment and society, to the Drifters who not too concerned about environment, figuring we’ve got time to fix environmental problems.

Trying to reach these varied consumer groups can be challenging. Advice is always welcome.
So some interesting information from Yahoo Green, a website launched last year by the venerable internet giant, sheds some light on the best way to do that. Yahoo managers have been tracking click-throughs, purchases and eyeballs on their new site. Incremental changes in the sight have revealed nuances not considered before and at the recent Sustainable Brands Conference,Erin Carlson, director of Yahoo’s social responsibility department, went over a few.

Though being green is all the rage in the US, one needs to look beyond our borders…well beyond, to find countries in which consumers act truly green. Not surprisingly, those consumers in the developing world, impacted the most by environmentally harmful behavior, tend to be the greenest.

The recently completed National Geographic/GlobeScan “Consumer Greendex,” rather than measuring the overall “greenness” of each nation looks specifically at consumer behavior and tells a different story than that of traditional measurements of sustainability by country.

The US, still doesn’t fare very well

The findings show that consumers in Brazil and India tie for the highest Greendex score for environmentally sustainable consumption at 60 points each. They are followed by consumers in China (56.1), Mexico (54.3), Hungary (53.2) and Russia (52.4). Among consumers in wealthy countries, those in Great Britain, Germany and Australia each have a Greendex score of 50.2, those in Spain register a score of 50.0 and Japanese respondents 49.1. U.S. consumers have the lowest Greendex score at 44.9. The other lowest-scoring consumers are Canadians with 48.5 and the French with 48.7.

A recent article in Business Green discusses several ways of classifying the green consumer and the issues related to reaching them. Though demographics, the tried and true way of sorting out consumers into groups by income, age, education, etc. works well in some categories, it’s not as helpful in segmenting green consumers.

Enter Psychographics, often used by niche marketers, it can be an effective tool for eco entrepreneurs.

• Demographics looks at characteristics of people that include age, income, education, occupation, household size, home ownership and home value, among other factors.
• Psychographics delves deeper into people’s lifestyles and behaviors, including their interests and values.

While segments of green consumers vary according to the source you use (check out this hilarious post that outlines some of them) I’ll use the Natural Marketing Institute’s labels for LOHAS ( lifestyles of health and sustainability) consumers.

• LOHAS — very progressive on environment and society, looking for ways to do more; not too concerned about price (16%).
• Naturalites — primarily concerned about personal health and wellness, and use many natural products; would like to do more to protect the environment (25%).
• Conventionals — practical, like to see the results of what they do; interested in green products that make sense (e.g., save money) in the long run (23%).
• Drifters — not too concerned about environment, figuring we’ve got time to fix environmental problems; don’t necessarily buy a lot of green products, though may like to “be seen” in Whole Foods to enhance their image (23%).
• Unconcerned — have other priorities, not really sure what green products are available, and probably wouldn’t be interested anyway; they buy products strictly on price, value, quality, and convenience (23%).